Sara Scalia

[MplsGopher]

(full disclosure: I don't follow the WBB team closely, though I probably should give up on MBB this year and follow the women's team instead. I saw in the STrib today that the lady's have won eight in a row, and that freshman Scalia had a great game. So out of curiosity, I checked the roster of the women's team this year.)

I see that Scalia, already starting as a freshman, is the only player from Minnesota this season.

I will never blame a star high school player, who has grown up in Minnesota for all of their lives, for parlaying their ability in sports into an opportunity to see if the grass is greener in some other state (yes, even if just to Iowa or Wisconsin).

But, when they do decide to stay in-state and play for our Gophers, and when they are stars, they must be celebrated!!

Sara Scalia -- hats off to thee!!

 

[samloupete]

I had men’s season tickets for 42 years and women’s for the last 5 years. I no longer go to men’s games because Pitino can’t recruit to the level that you need to to be relevant year in and year out. The U can get a basketball coach just like Fleck in football.

 

[GringaGopher]

I also dropped my men's BB season tickets after more than 20 years. I like Pitino but agree he falls short in recruitment. I have had my women's BB season tickets for almost 20 years. We have the coach of the future for the women's program and now we need one for the men.

 

[Shades]

I also dropped my men's BB season tickets after more than 20 years. I like Pitino but agree he falls short in recruitment. I have had my women's BB season tickets for almost 20 years. We have the coach of the future for the women's program and now we need one for the men.

How about Jim Peterson?

 

[MplsGopher]

A name that is popular on the mbb forum is Craig Smith. Midwest roots, and coached with Tim Miles at NDSU, Colo St, and Nebraska. Has taken over Utah St this year.


Anyone have any comments on Scalia?

Or if not, any comments on why the lack of MN players on the WBB? Does it matter to you? Do you think Whalen will change that?

 

[adamj95]

No doubt about it that Lindsay will get more MN players than under the previous coach. I think that the gopher women can win with Minnesota players, just look at the team that made the final four. I believe there were 9 players from MN on that team. With continued success, young girls will grow up wanting to play for Lindsay. You just have to give her time since the previous coaching staff wasn’t aware that Minnesota girls basketball players existed. Just my two cents.

 

[samloupete]

Lindsay did miss out on Bueckers which is mildly discouraging but did pick up Adalia McKenzie.

 

[adamj95]

Lindsay did miss out on Bueckers which is mildly discouraging but did pick up Adalia McKenzie.

Geno got a multiple year head start. Without checking, I believe Stollings went to MAYBE two games of hers. When you have the #1 player in the country minutes away from your school, I don’t care if it’s a long shot, you go to as many games as possible. Whalen basically had no chance of getting her when Bueckers had Notre Dame and UCONN recruiting her for years.

 

[EaganGopher22]

https://www.azcentral.com/story/spo...=google&utm_medium=amp&utm_campaign=speakable

The Arizona Republic:

Pam Borton was fired as Gophers coach in March 2014 and replaced by Marlene Stollings, previously at Virginia Commonwealth, when Russell and Ruden were high school sophomores.

"I was looking at Minnesota early in eighth and ninth grade," said Ruden, who grew up in Rochester, Minn. "After the coaching change, I fell off their list."

Russell, from Minneapolis, had the hometown university among her final three choices but in June 2015 – after Stollings' first season – joined Ruden and three others as part of an Arizona State recruiting class that would end up ranked a school-high No. 10 nationally.

Four of those five still are at ASU – Sydney Goodson transferred to Texas Tech, now coached by Stollings – with three NCAA Tournament appearances to their credit. The path to No. 4 goes through Minneapolis on Sunday in a homecoming game of sorts for the Minnesota Sun Devils against the Gophers.

Click to expand...

I am not very adept at this. I copied the above post from Iggy. Note in the article that MN players were not being recruited for about 6 years prior to Whalen being named coach. Give Whalen time, that is a significant gap/hurdle to overcome.

 

[MplsGopher]

Thanks for the comments. Hope the wbb team keeps it up and hope to catch some of he games on BTN this season!

 

[lacemup]

i live in ne/sd and we get coverage of the minnesota state high school tournament. watched Stillwater's games and really liked sara scalia's game. when i heard she signed with minny, i thought they may have got a "diamond-in-the-rough" (although, some may not agree with that analogy). i saw an article from espn that had her a 3* and the 56th rated guard. would like to ask gopher fans a question: i was just curious as to what other offers she had? any other "big" DI offers?

 

[Shades]

She was an 88 3-star prospect. Didn’t register in the overall Top 100 but had a position rank of #65. Based on play so far, I’d say she has eclipsed expectations.

 

[CutDownTheNet]

I don't know if Sara got any other scholarship offers, although I suspect she did. But I also suspect that her heart was always in favor of playing for Minnesota, assuming they offered her, somewhat like Rachel Banham and Carlie Wagner.

Watching her playing in the MN State Tournament her senior year, I knew already then that she was a good choice, regardless of what any ranking services say (and those are always hit-or-miss).

To update some stats I posted earlier in a different thread, Sara's 3-point shooting has improved during Big-Ten play, such that she currently is shooting .480 from three in the first five Big-Ten games. That means she's making almost half her three-point shots. "Good" is considered to be making at least one-third of your shots from deep.

Her full-season (including non-conf play) three-point shooting percentage is a bit lower at .433, which puts her in 27th place in NCAA Div I. And also in 4th place in the Big Ten, behind Petra Holesinska of Illinois (.474) (who burned us recently), our own Destiny Pitts (.459), Makenzie Meyer of Iowa (.441), and Abi Scheid of Nothwestern (.440). And ahead of Blair Watson of Maryland (.417), and Taylor Mikesell of Maryland (.400).

But if you cheat a little bit and check where her most-recent .480 Big-Ten three-point shooting percentage falls on the current full-year NCAA charts, then she lands at 5th place in the NCAA Div I and 1st place in the Big Ten. The leader in that statistic is shooting .500 from deep - only 20 points better than her Big-Ten three-point shooting.

In other words, what @Shades said ...

> Based on play so far, I’d say she has eclipsed expectations.

By the way, don't go looking for her on the relevant NCAA stats page. The NCAA has totally botched up its statistics pages this year, and true to form, Scalia is wrongfully missing from that page. But she would be 27th on that page, if they had gotten it right. Taiye has been missing from her relevant page(s) at various times this year also. Who do we call at NCAA to get them to fire their statistics people? It's utterly criminal to skip NCAA players from their rightful place in the rankings. If it were the WNBA or the NBA, heads would roll.

 

[Waffle]

i live in ne/sd and we get coverage of the minnesota state high school tournament. watched Stillwater's games and really liked sara scalia's game. when i heard she signed with minny, i thought they may have got a "diamond-in-the-rough" (although, some may not agree with that analogy). i saw an article from espn that had her a 3* and the 56th rated guard. would like to ask gopher fans a question: i was just curious as to what other offers she had? any other "big" DI offers?

She wanted to stay local so there aren't a lot of big offers. Wisconsin & Marquette were the biggest and was looking at Drake, Green Bay.